


Oasis

by kat_alyst



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: (they are something else), Aliens, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Space, CCG Nagachika Hideyoshi, F/F, F/M, M/M, Magic, no ghouls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:45:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8132596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat_alyst/pseuds/kat_alyst
Summary: "Or, maybe we’ll be in luck and only crash into the planet and get kidnapped by weird magic cat people… who’ll keep us as slaves for the rest of our lives.”  Hide had been joking. So why has Every. Single. Freaking. Part. Of that sentence, except the cat part (damn it! He likes cats) come true?Where Hide goes into space, and finds a little a bit of love, a little bit of hate and a whole lot of weirdness.





	1. Calm &

**Author's Note:**

> So, um, I got into Voltron.
> 
> This is brought to you by writer'sblock™

 

_Noooooooo!_

“Noooooooo-!”

“Nagachika, shut up. You’re in public.”

Hide draws his knees further into himself, burying his face into them while groaning loudly, the dreaded papers still clutched angrily in his fist. He doesn’t give a toss that he’s slouched in the corner of the office, he thinks he can feel eyes on his on him, probably the many other investigators who have been interrupted by the noise, but he still doesn’t care and he can definitely feel Akira’s ice cold glare. He thinks he deserves more sympathy, Akira of all people should understand his pain, she was the one to deliver the horrifying news. The file in his hand makes a sound as Hide grips it tighter, and he groans again.

He has a mission; he was going into space. That was the information he had digested from the file that Akira had slapped on top of his desk, _at first_ , which promptly caused him to stand up and punch his fist in the air, yelling over to Seidou from the other side of the room that he was going to space before him, only to be shut down by Seidou ignoring him. But, after calming down his excitement enough to actually read the file properly, he read what he was going to space for.

To collect crystals. The crystals the CCG uses to power the cores of their space ships. _To get some freaking crystals like he was some space janitor._

Hide is more than frustrated. Having just turned twenty-two, marking his fourth year working at the CCG, he believes that he should be sent on missions as a fighter pilot to battle hostile aliens, since he has passed all his simulation tests at the top of the class, or he can even be sent to planets to use all the skills he learnt from his combat training, but they are sending him to retrieve crystals like he is just a dumb rookie (okay maybe he is. He’s still Rank 3 but that’s not the point).

“Why did they have to pick me.” Hide sighs into his knees, he would take boring earth investigations any day over _this_. It was what Hide had been originally doing anyway, tracking down a gang of red aliens who had been transporting illegal substances from their home planet, gunning down an alien with two ugly heads that was wanted for eating someone’s pet, sending back a pod of dog-like men who tried sneaking on to earth, he’d done it all. It was boring, far more boring than going into space to blast away approaching fleets of foreign ships which most of the high-ranking CGG pilots do on a monthly basis.

But, anything was less boring than collecting fuel. In the tedious lessons he used to have in his academy days, he was taught about the power crystals, he never thought he actually needed the knowledge of them.

“If it makes you feel better, it was originally just Amon and I who were going.” He hears Akira say and raises his head. She is sat in his desk chair, a few feet away from him, staring down at his place on the floor clearly unimpressed, “But I put in a good word for you, I thought you wanted to go.” Well, she was wrong and Hide feels betrayed that she was the one to drag him into this.

“I didn’t sign up for _this_.” Hide moans, waving the file in the air to make a point, and he knows he sounds childish.

“Yes you did.” Akira states, “Most of us investigators have had to do it. Isn’t that right?” She says it loud enough for the entire office room to hear, and she receives grumbles of agreement around her. She looks satisfied at the response. “How else is the CCG meant to provide fuel for the hundreds of ships that they have?”

“B-But this is the first time I’m going up there,” Hide lifts a finger to the ceiling, gesturing vaguely while pouting, “I wanted to kick some space alien butt for real, not handle crystals.” _Jeesh._ It’s not the 21st century anymore, a guy shouldn’t be stuck on earth doing the crappy jobs and just to go into space to do more crappy jobs.

“The fact that this is going to be your first time in space proves that you’re not ready for that- no don’t look like that, it’s true. Just use this trip as experience. Then, next time you go to space it will be your second time and they might send you to do something better. Okay?” Hide can’t help but be assured at her words and drops his arms from around himself, she softens her face and stands up, brushing her skirt down to rid herself of the invisible dust. “Now, I suggest you spend the rest of your time reading over that file like your life depends on it, you need to know how to extract the crystals like the back of your hand.” She advises, giving Hide a stern look as he pulls himself off the floor.

“Yeah, yeah, I will.” Hide scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, Akira nods and turns to leave. “Uh- Wait!”

“Yes?”

“Thanks, Akira-san” She shakes her head, lips tugging upwards, and pointedly looks at the crumpled file in Hide’s hand.

“Just get on with it.”

 

 

“Sooo, Amon-san… what do you think of this predicament?” Hide asks after stuffing a three pieces of sushi in his mouth. Akira glares at him for the seat next to him, in a silent warning for him not to speak with his mouth full of food. Amon lets out an amused huff. The sushi bar they agreed to go to after work is practically empty, only a few stragglers left at the tables because of the late hour. Hide preferred it like this, the quiet atmosphere with his superiors, who he’s worked with for years.

“Well- Uh, it could be better.” Amon admits, “But it won’t take long, the planet we’re flying to isn’t far away.”

“Huh? Which planet is it?” Hide asks, genuinely confused, he was sure his file didn’t say which planet they would be visiting. “Oooh, don’t tell me it’s _Padunelk_.” Hide glowers, if they are going to that awful purple planet that he heard stinks of vomit, he might purposefully break his legs so he can’t go.

“So you didn’t read the file after all.” Akira accuses, pointing her spoon in Hide’s face.

“Wha- I did! I swear I read every line five times.” Hide spluttered, leaning away from the threatening spoon. “I swear!”

“Then how-” Akira cut herself off suddenly, narrowing her eyes at Hide. “Did you read the back page?” Hide blanches, _there was a back page?_

“How was I supposed to know there was a back page!?”

“By using your brain.”

“Hey!”

“Akira, he’s young.” Amon interjected, preventing Akira from retorting, “Allow him to make a few mistakes.” Hide grumbles to himself, he’s not even that much younger than them, yet they treat him like a child. “Anyway, we are not going to _Padunelk_.”

Akira snorts into her soup, “Thank god, they don’t have the right type of crystal.” Hide releases a breath of relief, picking a piece of fish off his plate and happily taking a bite out of it.

“I heard that Arima and his squad are going to-” Amon interrupts himself with a laugh, both Hide and Akira look towards eachother, then at him curiously, “They’re going to _Falcon Petmu_ for crystals.” Hide almost chokes on his last piece of fish at the mention of the planet.

“Are you serious!?” Hide shouts, Akira nudges his leg with hers, shushing him, but her eyes are wide too. “That’s the planet with the surface that’s covered in-”

“Let’s not think about that.” Akira exclaims, shaking her head at Hide. “Let’s just be grateful it’s not us.” Both men nod in agreement, and the table drifts into a comfortable silence, the clatter of cutlery and chatter of the few other people in the restaurant being the only sounds to disturb it. Hide is much more pleased about going to space after learning about the Arima squad’s misfortune, nothing can get worse than _that_ planet. It makes Hide think what the planet he’s going to will look like up close, could it be like Earth? Hide remembers he still doesn’t know what planet they’re going to.

“You never told me what the planet is called.” Hide asks after a while, finally wanting to fill in the silence after placing his chopsticks down.

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Amon apologises, “It’s called Saois V.”

“Sa-oh-is V?”

“Yes.”

“Never heard of it.” Hide shrugs, testing the name in his head. It sounded like a serious kind of planet, if serious kind of planets existed, but there was something about the name that made Hide’s head pang weirdly. It’s almost like he knew the name from somewhere, but he knows he can’t. “Do you know what it looks like?”

“Apparently the surface is quite barren.” Amon answers after a moment to slurp up his noodles, “No one has been there before, though. So-”

“We’re gonna be the first there!?” Hide couldn’t help but burst out, Saois V is starting to sound more and more interesting. They are going to be the first people to explore a planet, and it’s enough to make Hide a little bit more eager to go. “Why has no one been there before?”

Amon looks like he is going to speak, but ends up shrugging.

“It’s complicated…” Akira continues for him, twirling a spoon in her hand, “I think the CCG hasn’t been certain about the safety of this planet, I mean, it’s strange that the planet is uninhabited.”

“…Why is that strange?” Hide leans forward slightly, intrigued and slightly scared.

“On the surface it may be barren, but a large quantity of crystals has been detected underneath. It has more crystals than Earth and the other visited planet have combined.”

“Yeah,” Hide drawls, already feeling a dark coil of foreboding in his stomach. “That’s fishy. Why hasn’t any other being gotten to it. Crystals are, like, super valuable aren’t they? Surely-”

Amon and Akira share a look.

“- someone else has already colonised it, meaning we’re going to have to battle it out with weird space people. We should ask for more back-up, only having us go there is too-”

“Hide.” Hide’s sentence trails off, Amon and Akira are both staring at him funnily. He doesn’t know which one of them called him, maybe it was both of them.

“Uh- Sorry.” He feels a hand land on top of his head.

“You’re a good kid.” Amon ruffles the blond hair reassuringly, “We’ll be fine.”

 

 

 

Hide can’t sleep.

He’s lying awake on top of his covers, the slight chill of the autumn air coming through his window brushes against his skin. He feels the prickly feeling of goose bumps forming on his bare arms and shifts uncomfortably on his bed.

Tomorrow, he’ll be on Saois V, looking for crystals. It sounds easy, right?

Yet, he can’t shake the nagging feeling in the back on his head.

It’s an annoying sensation, he can’t even shut his eyes without becoming irritated. While he had a shower, he had just brushed the feeling off as a little bit of anxiety, the other guys probably feel it too, _no biggie_. It doesn’t go away, in fact, it’s gotten worse. He can’t explain it, he only knows it’s making him more and more nervous as morning approaches.

The night before, he tried to search the CCG database for ‘ _Saois V’_ and came up with nothing. _Nothing. Nada. Not even mentioned anywhere. Doesn’t exist._ Which is worrying since he could literally search up _‘poop’_ and still find _something_ (not like he’s done that or anything… *cough*).

He has a bad feeling, really bad feeling and he knows his intuition is right like 99.9% of the time, so accurate that it could rival Akira’s, but if he told her that he would be ignored for the rest of the year.

He tries closing his eyes again. _Go to sleep for god's sake, Hide._

Now, the feeling makes images of him and his team on the mysterious planet flood his brain. They’re stranded, looking for shelter, out of supplies, dying. He feels hot, tiny beads of sweat rolling down his collar bone into his tank top. The visions look so real, real enough to scare Hide into opening his eyes.

He breathes out, staring at his ceiling. _It’s not real, not real at all._

Yeah, he’s not getting to sleep anytime soon.


	2. Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hide gets a surprise, which turns out to be a disappointment, which turns out to be an absolute DISASTER. Part 2.

“You look like absolute crap…  as always.”

Hide clutches his helmet against his chest, mocking offense.

“Don’t talk to me, or my space suit, ever again.”  Seidou grins and shakes his head.

“If Saois V is as dodgy as you’ve been telling me, I might not.”

“You’re just jealous!” Hide blurts, rubbing his hands over his new space suit. “I look freaking cool in this.”  He was only back at the CCG to collect the suit from the office, and _boy_ , was he shocked. His whole body covered from his feet to his Adams apple in white and grey. Bulky white armour plates his upper torso, arms and covers the knee-high boots, while firm grey material covers his neck and any other area not shielded by the armour. It was bulky, but light and easy to walk around in and hugs his body nicely. His helmet has the same white design. To finish it off, glowing gold CCG logos are etched in the side of the shoulder plates.

“I’m not jealous.” Seidou scowls, turning his lips down at the suit. He did think it looked bad-ass, but he wasn’t going to admit that anytime soon.

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“ _Are too._ ”

“ _Am not!_ ”

“Cut it out.” Amon had entered the lobby, kitted up in his own space suit and a backpack on his shoulder. “Nagachika, we’re leaving for the port in five.” He reminds, Hide puts his hand to his head in a salute, but Amon has already made his way down the corridor.

“Hey,” Hide turns back towards Seidou, who has a slightly more serious expression on his face. He’s looking down at the ground with his fist clenched tightly by his sides, brown bangs covering his face.  “I didn’t mean what I said.” Hide makes a confused noise in the back of his throat. “…About me not seeing you again.” His voice wobbles.

Hide walks closer towards Seidou to put a hand on his shoulder, “It was a joke, I get it. I’m not dying or getting stuck on some random planet anytime soon.” He tries to make it sound comforting, but the images he can’t rub from his eyes of everyone’s death causes his words to come out slightly strained.

“I wish I could go up with you guys.” _Oh no you don’t._ Seidou should be glad that he’s forced to stay on earth and do investigations, the safe option, Hide realises. “It’s always _Akira and Amon_ who are sent on stuff like this, but I never get to-”

 “Don’t worry, I’ll look after Akira for you.”

“ _EH!?_ ” Seidou splutters, red covering the entirety of his face.  “When did I say anything about _her_.” Hide’s already laughing and the stiff man pulls himself away from him with an angry pout.

“You didn’t have to, man.”

 

 

“Do you have everything?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Extracting equipment?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Blaster parts?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Food supplies?”

“ ** _Yes._** ”

“Water”

“ ** _Yes._** ”

“Toilet paper?”

“ ** _YES!_** _Holy crap._ Ha-ha, get it? Holy _crap_ … because of toilet paper?”

“…”

“Erm... Anyway, is this necessary?”

“Yes.”

“Can I get on the ship now?”

“No.”

“Oh thank- _What!?_ ”

“Do you have my coffee?”

“…Have you seriously been joking all this time?”

 

Hide settles in the pilot’s seat comfortably, stretching his arms in front of him and smirking at all the different controls surrounding him. He’s feeling more ready for this. The ship for him and his superiors has a spacious white-gold interior, long fluorescent lights lining the floors and roof. The exterior of the ship reminds Hide of a whale, large curved front and small tail lined with gold lights, three wings on either side. When he had first entered the ship, he immediately dropped his bag and ran to the cockpit to caress the many different control panels and switches, the buttons lighting up in response. It was more high-tech than the ones in the simulations, more sophisticated. In the rear area of the ship there are beds that retract from the walls, a water closet, what looks like a kitchen with a smooth black table (and to Hide’s delight) a fridge and coffee machine.

It seems like the CCG’s really gone out to advance their technology this year.

Hide almost drools over the digital displays surrounding the pilot chair, and he is just reaching a hand out to touch one when someone grabs him under his arms and lifts him out the seat.

“Wha- Hey! No!” Hide cries, watching himself helplessly being put in a similar chair away from the control panel. “I want to fly!” He reaches his hand out towards the main seat miserably, but to no avail.

“Sorry, kid.” Amon chuckles, hands forcing the younger of the two into the chair. “You can’t pilot just yet.” He reaches around the seat to buckle Hide up.

"Why?" Hide choses to ignore the fact that he's being handled like a baby. He was just starting to enjoy himself and, yet again, its ruined.

"Because we don’t want to die before we get there.” Akira answered matter-of-factly, walking up the few steps leading to the cockpit. Oh, so now his piloting skills are being insulted, great.

“We’re more likely to die _after_ we get there, actually.” Hide grumbles, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Or, maybe we’ll be in luck and only crash into the planet and get kidnapped by weird magic cat people… who’ll keep us as slaves for the rest of our lives.”

“Good. I’ve always been a cat person anyway.” Akira has a hand on her hip when she positions herself in front of Hide, who’s mumbling incoherently under his breath. “Look, this is for safety reasons-”

“Safety reasons-”

“ _Hide._ ” The way she says his name makes him shut his mouth. “Just put your helmet on.” She shoves the backpack that Hide had dropped in his face, helmet making up a huge bulge in the bag. Hide complies without a word, tucking his small pony tail into the back of his collar in order to click the helmet in place. Unsurprisingly, Akira plonks herself down in the pilot seat while Amon has already situated himself in a co-piloting chair. They start familiarising themselves with the controls before Hide feels the soft hum of the ship booting up.

“Okay, Amon, check the vitals for me.” Akira orders, flicking a couple of switches that suddenly turn all the screens are on, Hide can see the percentages of gases present in the atmosphere surrounding the ship on the monitor closest to him.

“Everything’s Fine.” Amon responds after tapping away on the panel, “Fuels at 97%, we probably only need 50% to get there and back.”  Hide watches a transparent map view of the galaxy project itself on half of the window and is reminded that he’s actually _going into space, oh hell._ Maybe he’s not ready to fly, he’s too excited and terrified.  _Space_ is a big place after all, big enough to get lost in… forever. Hide quietens his mind before he gets himself into that dark place again.

_“Destination set to: Saois V.”_ A monotonous female voice blares from the speaker, the map projection scrolls rapidly through the universe before setting a flag point on a small blue dot labelled ‘Saois V’. Hide can’t tell how far away it is from earth, it looks kind of close on the map, but the computer estimates a three-hour journey, not that long.

“Alright,” Akira mutters processes as she presses buttons and grabs onto the handles of two levers beside of her, “You guys ready?” She looks back at Amon and then Hide, a determined grin on her face. Her confidence is infectious; it makes the doubt clouding Hide’s mind quieten enough for him to return her smile.

“ _Hell yes!_ ”

 

 

 

Hide only realises he's fallen asleep when his nap is disturbed by an extremely irritating sound.

"...five more minutes." He croaks, shifting his body to the right. It’s a little uncomfortable, he can feel the arm of the chair digging into his back. _How did he even fall asleep here?_

_" **THRUSTERS DIS.... ATION...LOCK... PREPARE FOR...** " _Hide cracks his eyes open blearily; his ears start to pick up the interface voice through the sound of...

_The ALARM? SHIT!_ Hide jumps up in his chair, head swimming at the fast motion, and blinks the sleep away from his eyes. What the hell could have triggered the alarm?

"Uh- damn- We have a problem!" His head snaps towards Akira, who's standing over the control panel with her hands splayed out like she doesn't know what to do. _Shit._ If Akira doesn’t know what to do, they are all truly fucked. Hide can't help but think of all those death scenarios he thought up the night before. Sucked into the abyss through a black hole, or maybe engine failure causing the ship to drift in space forever or…

At least life was good while it lasted.

"Akira! What's going on?" He shouts over the blaring of the sirens, he looks around to see several screen flashing a bright red. Red can only mean one thing, _danger,_ but maybe, just maybe things aren’t that bad. She looks like she's about to answer him when she's interrupted,

_" **THRUSTERS DISABLED, NAVIGATION CONTROLS LOCKED, PREPARE FOR DESCENT.** "  _He takes back everything he thought. they are going to die here, on this ship. Right now.

Hide snaps his gaze towards the window.

Saois V is massive; it’s an entirely red planet, entirely lonely looking planet.

 Nothing special about it except for the fact that it would be their graves.

_Yeeaaaah,_ they were heading straight towards it. The ship was ready to dive head-first into a sea of red dust, and quickly too. Hide turned to scream about their imminent death, when suddenly the ship jolts sharply to the left, causing both Hide and Akira to fall and tumble to the left wall of the ship. They land next to each other, and Hide can feel the throbbing of his head where it hit the side of a desk. He bites his tongue to stop himself from crying out.

“N-Nagachika,” Akira sounds out of breath. “Get in your seat.” She orders, hauling herself of the floor, ship still tilted awkwardly, and offers Hide a hand up. Once he’s up, Hide hears the _swoosh_ of a door opening before Amon staggers towards them from out of it.

“I tried tampering with the internal wiring.” A bead of sweat trickles down his lowered brow. “Nothing seemed wrong, it might be an external problem.” Akira rubs a hand down her face and lowers her head.

“We can’t exit the ship at this speed.”  She sighs. “We have to just make-do. I’ll notify the office of the problem.”

“Akira…” Amon steps forward in front of the pilot seat after a long pause. “I’ll pilot.”

“No!” She places a hand on Amon’s chest to push him away. “It’s no use, I’ll just continue. It’s fine.”

“I don’t want you to feel responsible for this.” He sets his mouth in a determined line, pushing her hand off of him. But, his eyes are soft as he watches her.

“Uh guys-”

“I’m already responsible!” She snaps, leaning furiously into Amon’s face. “I can deal with it, okay!”

“You’ve piloted for long enough, I’ll take over.” Amon doesn’t back up, instead countering her position with his own intimidation, “You’re clearly stressed.”

“Guys…”

“ _I said_ I’m fine!”

“You say many things but it doesn’t mean it’s true!”

“ _EXCUSE ME!”_ They both turn towards Hide, startled by the interruption, and watch as he clears his throat and points to the window. “Sorry, but this isn’t the time to argue. As you can see, we’ve already entered the atmosphere.”

It’s true. They are much closer to the ground, and Hide can feel the awful feeling in his stomach, caused by the ship falling. He’s close enough to see the faint oranges and yellows mixed into the red colour of the terrain.

Then the ship violently lurches to the other side and they’re forced to scramble into their seats. Amon jumps into the pilot seat without any argument.

“We’ll still be able to land this, don’t worry.” Amon voice wavers uneasily, Hide almost comments on it, but a shout replaces it when he hears a screeching sound coming from inside the ship.

“What the hell was that!?” Akira took the words straight from Hide’s mouth.

“I don’t know-” Amon pulls one of the handles forward, causing another screeching sound to resound around the ship. “ _Shit._ ”

“What is it?” Hide yells over the sirens.

“Everything’s in lockdown.” Amon desperately fumbles with the controls, “I don’t know why. This makes no sense.”

The ship makes another wobble, and Hide doesn’t think anything of it. Until the ship continues to spin all the way around, continuously, and- shit- he feels like he’s going to puke. The alarm is blaring louder in his ear and he struggles to hear Akira.

“Amon, try something else!” She shifts downwards in her chair when they turn upside down. “Anything!”

“I’m trying.” Amon grits his teeth, finding it difficult to concentrate as they turn. “Nothing does anything.”

“They’re must be _something_.”  Hide squints at the window, the world outside bright in contrast to the inside of the ship.

**_“TEN SECONDS TILL IMPACT.”_ **

There so close. Hide can now see tiny little cracks in the dry surface of the planet. His eyes are stinging from staying open for too long, but if he blinks he feels like he’ll miss the moment they crash.

“I’m sorry.”

It doesn’t matter who says it, they all agree. The ship stabilises enough to keep them upright and it makes it worse. He can _clearly_ see that they are going to die.

**_“THREE SECONDS TILL IMPACT.”_ **

Hide couldn’t bare it anymore.

He thought about his home. His room that he had lazily left untidied. His bed with the manga he had only read halfway through. The empty halls. That one track on his Backstreet Boys album he didn’t listen to.

He thought about work. The files he still hasn’t read through; the case he is meant to be on after this mission. Seidou. He was probably still moaning about not being here. What a lucky man he is.

He thought about - - -

He squeezes his eyes shut.

**_“ONE SECOND TILL-”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *plays x-files music*


	3. Wreck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This situation just gets worse and worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos, seriously! I thought that maybe people wouldn't like this story.

 

“A distress signal was received an hour ago by one of our spacecraft.”

“From where?”

“It was set for Saois V.”

A heavy silence falls over the room.                                                                       

“From who?”

“First Classes, Mado and Amon. Also the former assistant, now Rank 3 Nagachika.

The sound of a glass slamming against the desk broke the silence.

“Who let that happen?” It was said with barely contained concern.

“It-”

“Because it certainly wasn’t me.”

“I allowed it.”

“Why?”

“That kid is special, more skilful and observant than other people on the job. It’s what got him promoted so fast.”

“…”

“I wanted to send him out there. Test him. I feel like he’s going to be useful. Something about him…”

A weary sigh.  “You know I trust your decisions.”

“Give them five days before we send in back-up. Saois V is uninhabited; they can’t be in too much trouble.”

A hum was the only response.

 

 

Hide hears before he sees.

A faint hissing and crackling sound accompanied by a shrill static noise pesters his ears until he twitches his head in annoyance, only to groan silently at the awful crick in his neck.

After that he notices a lot of things.

His chest aches painfully every time he tries to breathe through his cracked lips, a cough caused by air tickling his parched throat rattles his rib cage so hard that he doubles over, except he’s restrained by the seat belt. There’s a distinct smell of burning metal coming from somewhere which makes it even harder to breathe and his head feels light, like all the blood in his body has moved towards it.

Only after he pries his eyes open does he realise the entire ship is on its back. He’s hanging upside down in his chair, arms dangling towards the ground- or ceiling really.

_Why is it-_

Shit. Shit. _Shit._ He remembers everything, the mission, the crash, his- _Akira and Amon!_

His body is suspended awkwardly as he moves his head and he’s lost his helmet. Everything is disorientated because of his position and he feels very sluggish. On his left, Akira seems to be intact, just not conscious, and with no visible injuries. With Amon it’s harder to say, he’s in front of Hide meaning that he’s out of his line of sight, the back of his chair the only thing he can see, and Hide’s not in any shape to somehow climb down to take a look.

“Akira...? Amon?” His mouth is drier than a cracker, lips only slightly parted as he struggles to speak. He doesn’t receive a reply which makes his heart pick up a tiny bit. “…Uh?”

**_“O- - - SECOND - - ILL - - PACT”_** At least the ship’s computer could answer him… even though it wasn’t exactly an answer, and it had malfunctioned. **_“O – NE - - - SECO – SEC – SEC - SEC – SEC…”_** The constant reply of the message is never ending, and Hide wishes he could knock himself out again to escape the noise.

**_“SEC – SEC – TI - SEC – SEC – PAC - SEC…”_ **

“…Shuddup.”

Hide is considering seppuku to end his misery when he hears Akira mumble the word and he jolts up (down because he’s the wrong way around) in relief.

“Akira?” He tries, but it’s too quiet and doesn’t rouse her. “Akira!? Wake up! Come on!” Even though his voice is weak, it’s enough for her to groan and flutter her eyes open. “Akira!”

“Huh?” Her eyes are as dazed as she sounds. “Hide?” She turns her body in the chair before halting abruptly. “ _Oh.”_ He can see her calculating everything in her mind and taking in as much of her surrounding as she can. The smashed up control panels that hang from their hinges, sparks flying from them hazardously, the cracked window that has a direct view of the ground and the huge dents in the side of the ship. It doesn’t take a genius to know what happened.

“Yeah, _‘Oh’_.”

“We crashed.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re upside-down.”

“Yeah.”

“We should get out.”

“Yeah.” Akira sends him an unimpressed glare. “ _What?_ ”

She ignores him in favour of calling Amon’s name. When he still doesn’t respond she calls his name again, and again, and again. Hide doesn’t miss her worried glance. Hide hardly ever questions the nature of Amon and Akira’s relationship (because it’s none of his business and when Seidou gets involved it gets complicated) but he knows something’s up. The way she stares at him when he’s not looking, there’s definitely something there. Akira almost never shows her emotions outright, but with Amon… Hide’s only ever seen her this worried when her cat went missing for a day, only to be found locked in a cupboard.

However, now’s not the time to be thinking about that. Hide kind of wants to get out of here. Pronto.

Akira pulls herself up in her chair, wincing as she does so, and tries to peeks around the side of his chair, before falling back down against the back of the seat.

“Did you see anything?” Hide attempts to do the same as her, but his neck hurts too much from him to get his head to move to the side.

“His helmet’s off.” She takes a moment to breathe through her nose. “He’s not moving.” Hide can see his and Amon’s helmets discarded on the ceiling. The crash must have been pretty rough if it caused them to fly off their heads.

“Uh – so, how are we supposed to get down from here?” He thinks if he stays like this for any longer his brain will drown in all the blood that’s pooled around his head. “…With Amon.” He adds, remembering that Amon being out of commission is going to make everything a tiny bit harder. Hide would say to just leave him here, but he’s not a bad person (and he doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of Akira’s wrath.)

“I’ll go down first. You, stay there.” Akira rolls her shoulders, then unbuckles her seat belt. Before Hide can get another word in, she has already jumped straight down from the seat, turning in the air, feet landing perfectly on the ceiling.

How the hell did she do that so easily?

“The ship’s a wreck.” He hears her voice below him and the sound of her boots making crunching noises on the groung. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to fly this thing again.”

“Definitely not, since Amon and I are _still_ up here.”

“Oh yeah,” _Did she seriously forget in two seconds!?_ “Can you get down?”

“No?” Hide makes an irritated sound in the back of his throat. “Unlike you, I’m not Cat woman in disguise.” He hears her sigh.

“Look, I’ll catch you.” She walks underneath him with her arms spread out. “It’s not a big fall.” Akira looks up at him with a look that undoubtedly says _“If you fail this 7ft jump, I’ll personally kick your ass back into assistant position.”_ and Hide begrudgingly unbuckles his seatbelt. He’ll show her that he can. It should be easy, _pfft._ If Akira can do it, he -

Except he forgot that unbuckling his seatbelt meant falling immediately. 

And he didn’t turn quickly enough in the air because he was too busy flailing around in panic.

And he’s an idiot.

“ _SHIT-”_

“ _HIDE-”_

Akira has a second to scream, laced with utter incredulity, before Hide lands directly in her arms. Unfortunately, they both crash towards the floor because of his weight and her not expecting Hide to _actually_ fuck up. Hide doesn’t know whether to find it embarrassing or funny. In the end, he is finds it neither of those because he’s in too much pain.

“Um,” Hide groans, sprawled across Akira’s torso. “I think I broke my whole body.” He might be exaggerating, but if his neck and chest were hurting before, it’s killing him now. The smack of his body on the ground almost made him pass out again and he has to blink the black spots forming in his vision. Luck’s _really_ on his side today.

Not.

He expects a little sympathy for his superior, he’s hurting after all, but instead Akira uses her leg to kick him off her like he’s trash.

Hide rolls onto his back, ready to whine at her, when he sees face. Underneath her helmet her expression is _livid_. Her bangs hiding half her face, one eye revealed, glaring at him through the glass. She’s being quiet, and that’s scaring him more than anything.

Hide swallows loudly. Maybe apologising will help.

“…Sor-”

“ _I cannot believe-!”_

Nope.

_“-that you messed that up!_ All you had to do was-” Oh boy. A lecture from Akira, while they were stranded on a different planet, and hurt. Just what he needed. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the long, long tongue-lashing. “-drop down normally, instead of moving around like a madman and crushing me with your heavy body. I think my stomach’s-!” A cough interrupted the rest she had to say.

It didn’t come from either of them.

_“AMON!?”_ They both sprinted to below the pilot seat and looked up at the hanging black hair.

“What- _cough_ \- did Hide do now?” Amon’s voice was very hoarse, but at least he was alive. Hide gave Akira a relieved smile, despite her previous scolding, and she dropped her harsh look to nudge his shoulder with her own.

“He fell from his seat onto me.” Akira answered, ignoring Hide’s instantaneous sulking. Amon chuckles feebly and shakes his head at the younger boy.

“Give him a break, it’s not every day you have to do this.” Hide internally cheers as Amon defends his honour and Akira tuts.

“Your next, Amon. Unless you can do it by yourself.” She puts her arms out once again, eyes twinkling with amusement. He shakes his head once again and points to his head.

“As much as I wouldn’t want to burden you, I’m feeling dizzy right now.” There’s a line of read across his forehead, he must have hit his head on the control table during the crash. “Just be careful, I’m heavy.”

Hide puts his hands out as well. “Yeah just don’t kill us, you might with how big you are.” Amon snorts and unbuckles himself.

Amon’s body is like a huge sack of potatoes as it descends upon them, it happens so fast. Hide only has a half a second to regret trying to catch him because, damn, you would have to be the world’s strongest person to catch him and stay standing.

_“OH-”_

_“UGH-”_

They all end up on the floor once again.

Hide’s sure he’s going to suffocate with Amon’s back covering his face, but Amon is too big to get out from under him. The hard armour is digging severely into his front and once again his aching body can’t get a break from the abuse.

Amon still hasn’t moved. The two human pillows underneath him had been enough to cushion his fall, but he couldn’t feel his legs. “Sorry.”

“I think you broke my body. For real.” Hide’s voice is muffled by a face full of back.

“Ditto.” Akira says somewhere else from under Amon’s body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to HideKane >:)


	4. Dry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Does anyone have any idea why we crashed?”  
> “No.”  
> “Does anyone, except for Akira, have any idea why we crashed?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I've been so tired.
> 
> (Apologies if there are any mistakes throughout my work)

If anyone in the universe thought this couldn’t get any worse, they were wrong.

“You’re telling me that most of our supplies have been destroyed!?”

After smashing their way out of the ship through the back exit, they found themselves on a never ending land of red sand and no sea. Hide knew Saois V would be plain, but _this!?_ This is beyond plain, this world is _empty._ No plants, no mountains, no creatures, nothing. Just sand that goes on for miles. It’s frightening to say the least, and even though he’s holed himself in his room for days back home, he finally understands the term _isolation_. Even though he’s with two others, it doesn’t matter. They are just three little people on one big planet.

 _And_ they don’t really have a way of leaving it.

“Yes, we don’t have much left.” Akira holds up one bag containing all the food that she managed to salvage from the ship. “Which means we either have to fix the ship before they run out or scavenge.”

“I don’t even think there’s life on this planet.” Amon sounds slightly apprehensive. He is sitting with his back against the side of the ship with one foot, which Hide had to bandage due to a shard of metal somehow finding its way through the boot, resting on his other leg. “Let alone actual food.”

“Then how are we meant to fix _that_?” Hide motions to the horribly ruined spacecraft. There were tears all over it, the black paint chipped to reveal the silver underneath. The tip of two of the wings had broken off, the pieces nowhere in sight and the ship’s front was very much buried in the sand. It’s not like they could just push the ship back the right way around.

“The power crystals.” Amon answers easily. “They don’t just serve as fuel; they are the best resource for repairing anything and everything.”

Hide scrunches up his nose. “How? Don’t tell me their magical or something.”

“I don’t know. I thought you studied them.” Amon crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at him that Hide finds himself glowering at.

“I’ll let you know that I-” Akira clamps a hand down on his shoulder, silencing his defensive explanation. He has studied the crystals. He just… can’t remember any of it (it wasn’t important at the time okay!). Procrastinating and messing around on his phone during class seemed like a much better thing to do.

“Anyway~ first and foremost, we must find water.” She announces. “All but one flask has leaked.”

“Uh. Do you even realise where we are? This is basically a desert; we’ll be walking for two years before we find a drop of water.” Hide believes that he’s not overstating anything. Unless someone has the power to turn sand into water, they won’t be having a drink in a long time.

“Alright, just sit here and slowly die from dehydration.” Akira utters wryly, striding away from them towards the vast nothingness. “I’ll just find water for myself.”

“ _Hide._ ” Welp, he straightens immediately and doesn’t turn towards Amon. That’s not a tone that Hide can argue with.

“On it!” Hide musters as much fake cheer as he can.

 

 

Hide has been walking in a straight line, heat of the sun unpleasantly blaring on his skin through the spacesuit, for exactly twenty-three minutes before he decides to break to silence over the comm.

“Does anyone have any idea why we crashed?”

_“No.”_

_“_ Does anyone, _except for Akira_ , have any idea why we crashed?” He thinks he hears Amon laugh, but its interrupted by the crackling noise of the signal failing.

“ _I’m the only other **\---** here, Hide. My answer is the same as Akira’s, but it is strange that we crashed when everything was fine with our ship.”_

“See, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. If there’s nothing wrong with our ship, then it must have been something else that caused it.” Hide puts a hand to the side of his face, out of a habit which he has no idea where he gets from, but his hand meets the side of the helmet instead. “Something that we can’t see, maybe?”

 _“Y **\--** mean magic?” _ That incessant cracking sounds that distort Akira’s voice makes him uneasy, but he ignores it and nods.

Oh right, they can’t see him.

“Yeah, if the power crystals are supposed to be magical heal-y things, the planet might be… weird?” His foot sinks in a little mound of sand and he can feel the burning heat through his boot. He kicks it away absentmindedly. “I mean, Akira, you said that there’s a large quantity of crystals on this planet. The planet could be, like, very magical because of the number of crystals.” There is silence over the comm and Hide can tell Amon and Akira are psychically sharing a look. “It could be that our ship was overcome by ‘magic’. Oh! Or the power crystal that we use as fuel could be attracted to the crystal on this planet-”

 _“Hide. Whatever happened **\-- -** doesn’t matter. We’ll **\---** to fix this situation, stop worrying **\--**.” _ That wasn’t what Hide wanted to hear from Amon, the weak signal causes it to sound even less convincing. There was something extremely creepy about this trip and Hide wants to find out what it is before he goes home, no matter what they say to him. However, he’ll have to just leave his thoughts for now.

“Found any water yet, Akira?” There hasn’t even been a little puddle of water in Hide’s direction, just useless grains of sand. He’s even tried searching beneath the sand. He’s forced to give up, the weather somehow becoming unbearably hot, and its stuffy inside his helmet, but if he takes it off, he fears he might dry out quicker than he can say _“Hot damn.”_

_“Noth **\--- crsssh**.”_

“Akira?”

_“Signal **-** al **-** problem.”_

“Wha-” Hide suddenly trips on something, causing him to land on the sand (which really isn’t nice to fall on) with an _‘umph’_.

Then he’s rolling, continuously, down what must be a hill of sand that he didn’t realise he had walked on.

“Ow- _Jesus_. Damn it!”  The spacesuit does nothing against the boiling hot ground. “Ah!” The rolling finally comes to a stop at the bottom and he’s thrown onto his front, his helmet the only thing stopping him from having a face full of sand.

_“ **—** de?”_

_“ **\- -ccccch**.”_

“Yo. Can you hear me?” Hide groans, pulling himself to his knees. “I feel down a hill or something.” He looks up and said hill, it’s not very tall, but has a large enough slope that he can’t see over it. He really should have been paying attention to where he was going.

_“I **\- -** I think you should **\- strrrrrp- srssss**.” _

“I seriously can’t make out anything your saying.” Hide doesn’t know whether he should just go back to the ship or continue forward. Returning was definitely the safer, logical option. There’s no point looking for water that doesn’t exist. “I’m just going to come back, okay?”

 _“ **Zzzzrp- -** ” _Hide flicks off the switch on his helmet. It’s not going to help him anymore. He exhales noisily, getting up onto his two feet and walking back the way he came. It’s time for this useless journey to end after half an hour of boringness. He’s almost as excited to get off the planet than he was to come on it.

Brushing the sand of his front, he makes his way back towards the hill. For some reason his legs start slowing down, like he’s walking through tar, but he brushes it off as fatigue and the steepness.

Around halfway up, his feet stop moving altogether. He is clueless as to why, they just do.

_ Turn around. _

Hide’s body starts burning, and it’s not from the temperature. His eyebrows furrow deeply as he does as… whatever the hell just spoke in his head tells him to. It came to him like a whisper, yet it formed no words. More like planted the instruction in his brain. It made no sense whatsoever, although Hide complies- is forced to comply.

He wants to turn on his comm again, however something keeps his hand at his side.

When he does spin around, his mouth falls agape.

“Holy shit.”

A decent sized pool of water a few feet away from the base of the hill. He swears on his life that was not there before. He would have noticed.  That luscious blue colour that suddenly turns his lips dry and the soft swishing sounds of the water. It’s enticing and, before he knows it, he is sprinting down the hill, tongue poking out of his mouth, already imagining how the cool liquid will run over the inside of his throat and wet his dehydrated insides.

It’s good to drink.

No shit.

Hide all but collapses by the side of the pond, throwing off his helmet and holding his hand out just above the cerulean surface. He wonders whether he should tell Akira and Amon, they need water as well and he was supposed to contact them as soon as he found some.

NO.

Oh well, they could live without it.

_ D   R   I   N   K _

That sounds like a good idea. Hide’s cupped hands lower themselves into the water, feeling the little waves glide over his skin. He brings the hands out of the water, leading them up towards mouth. The water’s not even in his mouth and even now he can taste it.

No.

Hide opens his eyes; which he failed to realise he had closed. He blinks, bewildered, and looks down at his hands.

**_ N O. _ **

It’s like the imaginary glass surrounding his conscience shattered.

There is no water. The pool has disappeared, along with the water he was about to drink. It was all an illusion; how could he be so dense? It was like he wasn’t himself for a minute, his mind clouded, something _controlling him._ Hide throws himself back onto his arms and scrambles away. _What the fuck just happened?_

**_ Y   O   U _ **

A huge tremor sounds beneath him, shaking the very sand under him. Hide is still for a second and holds his breath, waiting. Waiting to see if it was a one off, waiting for a good time to bolt the hell away. That terrifying feeling he felt before returns and all he can think of are the multiple situations, starting with the mini earthquake that just occurred, and ending with his death.

The noise wasn’t a one-time thing. It happens again, followed by a crumbling sound as loud as thunder.

Hide scrambles to his feet and sprints. Sand isn’t the best thing to run on and just having to lift his legs high enough out of it to take a step uses up so much energy. He almost trips a few times, managing to keep himself on his feet from the major adrenaline rush he’s suddenly having.

He takes another step and his foot doesn’t meet sand.

Hide can only yell as he catches himself from falling right into a massive hole of nothingness that just formed beneath him.

That crushing sound he hears is literally the ground diminishing into a hollow pit that leads into the abyss. His legs sway right above the darkness in which he’s very sure leads to the centre of this world.

Hide tries to pull himself up, only to fall back down. The sand he desperately grips onto slips through his fingers and he feels his eyes starting to sting. One last time, while gritting his teeth painfully hard, he puts all his energy into drawing his knees over the ledge. To his own surprise, his knee gets up high enough for him to climb over the ledge. He crumples on ground, breathing hard, sweat slithering over his skin. He’s alive.

A roar-like sound deafens him. The ground he lies on vibrates erratically, then gives away.

Then he’s falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O SHIeTe yo... 
> 
> who's talking to Hide?


	5. From Earth, To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira is impatient and Hide wakes up and wishes he didn't have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >.

 

“It’s been an hour, Amon.” Akira’s foot taps against the sand restlessly.

“I can’t lie,” Amon takes a sip from the water canister that Akira had miraculously managed to fill up, having found a pit of rocks with trickles of green water flowing in between them. Luckily it had been safe enough to drink, despite it smelling like mouldy pineapples, and she had run back immediately, however the other member of the team had not responded to any of their attempts of contacting him. “I am slightly worried.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement.” Akira somehow manages to keep her calm, even though he nervous habits are starting to show. “We should search for him.”

“I’m not really in the best condition.” The bandaged wound on Amon’s leg made sure that any movement resulted in pain. He really had tried to stand, but it was all in vain.

Akira sucked in a breath, suddenly collapsing next to Amon on the ground that burns her suit.

“I – We have to go together.” Her face crumples up and she lowers her head. “I can’t afford to lose a member.” Amon notices how she tries to keep a brave front, but he knows how much Hide matters to her - both of them.

Maybe Hide was just trying to play a prank, a really convincing prank. Or maybe…

 He reaches a hand onto her shoulder and keeps it there securely. He can’t afford to think negatively, for his own sake and Akira’s.

“I promise, once I can feel my leg we’ll go.” He says reassuringly, but it doesn’t look like she heard him. There is a tense moment of silence, the hand and Akira’s shoulder becoming awkward and her breaths shortening. Suddenly, she pops off her helmet, the click and _whoosh_ interrupting the silence, and she exhales slowly.

“That leg better get good enough to walk, and soon.” She orders, digging her helmet into the sand. “Else I’ll carry you. I meant it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

Akira treads lightly as she walks away from Amon’s sleeping form under the broken wing of the ship. Watching him rest only made her more restless, and she isn’t one too sit around and wait.

But she’s not cruel enough to wake up him, he deserves a break. Even though she said they should go together, the seconds, minutes, hours that tick by while they aren’t doing anything makes her nervous.

She lifts her helmet back onto her head, with determination.

Hide still hasn’t come back and there’s a lingering fear that he will never come back, which is enough to will her into going forth by herself.

Akira knows Hide travelled east, and even in the weak light of the two moons she can spot a boot track a few metres in front of her.

_1.. 2.. 3.. 4.._

She follows the faint tracks, her own boots crunching on the ghost of Hide’s. Sometimes the tracks seem irregular, like Hide was hopping or jumping, and she lets out an amused huff. He must have been extremely bored, there is absolutely nothing interesting to look at out there, only gravely sand and Akira remembers that red was Hide’s least favourite colour.

_623.. 624.. 625.._

Other times the tracks would circle in a loop, making her really laugh as she follows them around because – _wow_ –  even in the land of nothingness, Hide finds a way to entertain himself.

Then her heart squeezes. she clenches her fists, and then unclenches them.

 _They will find him_ , Akira repeats it like a chant, but she scraps it immediately when it begins to sound unconvincing.

She doesn’t know how long she’s walked for, she lost count after fifteen minutes. She’s still able to follow the tracks, however she can barely spot the indents in the ground anymore because of the terrain becoming sandier.

In the distance, Akira sees that the sand is starting to curve downwards and her eyebrow twitches.

She speeds up, only half focusing on the tracks beneath her.

_“I fell down a hill---”_

Her heart thuds in her ears.

She’s in the right place.

However, something glints in the corner of her eye and she skids to a halt.

Akira turns and the glints gone, but she decides to investigate it anyway. She definitely wasn’t seeing things, and for her own security she grabs her gun from her belt and holds it with both hands, she herself was starting to think this planet isn’t what it originally seems like.

She catches the glint again not far to her right, it looks like it’s coming out of the top of the hill.

_“Akira!?”_

She almost drops her gun in surprise, but steadies herself and puts her hand to her helmet.

“Amon?” Akira bends down to inspect the glint up close, she tilts her head and the glint fades. She prods the piece of silver metal, around the size of her hand, that caused the gleam.

 _“A-Akira! Where are you?”_ Amon sounds anxious, and she almost feels bad for leaving without telling him.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Akira puts down her gun and tries to pick up the pointy metal fragment, it’s smooth surface somewhat familiar to her. “I’m just-”

She can’t move it, it’s stuck.

_“What?”_

She tries again, to no avail. _Huh._

Akira dusts away the sand, revealing the piece to be larger than she thought, yet she still can’t move it. It glints tauntingly at her and she brushes away more of the sand, and the metal becomes even larger, then she scrambles to kick away the sand in bigger portions, the metal expanding out more and more and-

That’s when she knows what it is.

“Amon.”

_“What are you doing? Where are you? You know it’s a bad idea to separate after what happened-”_

“Amon.” She steps away from what she uncovered, and if she’s right, there’s more buried underneath the sand. _“Akira?”_ If she’s right, she really wishes she isn’t.

“I found something… and I - I don’t know, but I think we’ve been lied to.”

 

 

Hide rouses to the feeling of someone dragging him by the collar and there’s a second where, in his drowsiness, he thinks he’s fallen asleep at the office and Akira’s caught him in the act again, but then he considers that it can’t be true because he was flying with them on a space ship and what he’s looking at does not look like the white tiled ceiling of the-

He barely manages to contain his shout.

He’s in a cave, a dim-lit and damp smelling cave, with _someone_ dragging him.

Hide can’t turn around to look at who it is, not wanting to alert them of his awakening, yet the feeling of being tied up with rope and potentially being lead to his death isn’t helping his nervousness. What’s worse is that he can’t think properly, the pang of pain every time his body is moved slightly makes it almost impossible to think of a plan.

_I fell… how am I still alive?_

_Who’s behind me? There are beings on this supposedly 'uninhabited' planet?_

_Where am I?_

“Dumb… _shit_ -” Hide freezes at the grumbling coming from above him, and closes his eyes to feign unconsciousness. The voice was too muffled to determine the gender of the person… thing, but whatever was pulling him was sentient, and he doesn’t know whether to be comforted by that or not (especially since they didn’t sound too happy).

The mumbling continues, too quiet for him to decipher, and he continues to pretend he’s a corpse – which is really boring by the way – eyes squeezed shut, taking tiny breathes every ten seconds, until the movement stops and the weight on the back of his suit disappears. His head hits the jagged ground with a _‘thunk’_ and he wheezes with the agony the racks his body.

Hide almost chokes when he hears a step coming towards him and the cold feeling of a shadow crawling over his form. He panics and holds his breath, he can feel his knife still tucked into his boots and even if there’s no possible way for him to grab it while he’s tied up like this, it’s presence enables him to feel less vulnerable.

The footsteps pause right next to his face.

There’s a rustling sound, similar to clothes being taken off, and then silence.

All of a sudden, he can feel the presence leaning closer and closer, so close that he can hear their exhales and he’s really trying to keep his face passive.

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit ohshitohshitohshit_

It’s in this moment that he wishes he really was dead, because, _hell,_ this was creepier than any horror movie, or 90s chick flick he’s watched. Ever.

He’s been holding his breath for a minute, ready to just scream out any second now when he hears a sniff.

It’s a big, long, loud sniff, right in his face which is followed by a drawn out moan and a series of wet sickening popping sounds, and there’s only two ways Hide thinks this can go.

  1. He’s about to be ravished
  2. He’s about to be _ravished – (Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.)_



Either way, he’s _fucked,_ pun really not intended.

The crackling ended with a sound akin to water spraying, then the rope wrapped around his middle begins to feel loser and is pulled off him, turning him onto his side in the process. Hide’s brow twitches involuntarily, he has a perfect opportunity to escape and he can’t help but wonder what the hell’s going on behind his closed eyelids.

An animalistic snarl echoes around the hollow cave.

Hide has two seconds to decide that laying down isn’t going to help him in any way, before he’s opening his eyes---

To a pair of red ones---

 and a mouth full of fangs, about to take a chuck out of his arm.

There’s a moment, where all they do is stare at each other with wide eyes, both caught in surprise. All Hide can do is stare at this… _girl?_ Her hair, blue- or maybe purple- he can’t tell in the dark, hangs over one side of her face, and large pointy ears that curl at the end stick out from underneath and- _Holy Shit! Are those gills?_ His eyes trail down her neck, covered in light coloured scales that shimmer ethereally which endure down her body under her clothes, to her webbed hands, where short black claws dig into his arms.

And that’s when he remembers that she’s was going to eat him, and his arm twitches in her grasp.

At the slight movement, she screeches and jumps away from him.

_What. The. **Fuck.**_

She moves far away enough for Hide to inspect her entire body, there are two large wings behind her, one smaller than the other, that seem to be fizzling in a way that makes them look like an illusion and he feels like he could put his hand through them (not like he’s going to!) They’re so menacing, that he looks at her terrified expression and then back at those wings, and tries to put the two together.

When it looks like she’s not going to move, Hide stands up prudently from where he was sprawled on the ground while she watches on warily.

“You’re supposed to be _dead_.”

Hide almost keels over, not knowing if it was from the surprise of the creature talking to him or because his legs feel like they’ve been run over by a truck several times. He quickly corrects himself and straightens out to his full height, which is taller than the thing in front of him, he realises proudly.

“ _Why?_ ” He says, glad his voice isn’t betraying how uneasy he is. “So you could eat me?” He sounds childish and it’s probably an inappropriate response considering the situation, but he had weird coping mechanisms _okay._

“Yes.” She deadpans, mouth curling downwards, and Hide sees a slim tail swish out behind her in an annoyed manner. He’s almost offended, but shakes his head, raising an eyebrow when she looks startled by the gesture.

“Look,” Hide begins, moving forward, but falters when his foot crunches on the ground. He looks down to see piles upon piles of bones beneath his feet, so much that he couldn’t see the actual ground. He swallows thickly, and chooses to ignore it for a second (for the benefit of his own sanity).

“I should be dead, but I’m not, so- uh- you should ask the voice that was in my head why that is- and while you’re at it, also thank your planet for literally letting me down-”

“ _Oh_ _Odin,_ you’re annoying.” She interrupts him, blowing her hair out of her eyes. It took a minute for Hide to realise that her eyes had turned blue. “If most humans are like this, it’s better that they’re dead when I see ‘em.” She glances at him up and down mockingly, the frightened look removed from her face completely.

Hide opens his mouth to respond, but the fact that she knows what a human is shuts him up.

 _“We’re gonna be the first there_ _!?”_

If what she says is true, then that’s a damn lie.

“Well, this was interesting.” She drawls after more silence, her foot tapping impatiently on ground- _bones_. “But, I haven’t had a proper meal in a while and I found you first, so~”

Hide’s times up. She’s no longer afraid, and the five-minute conversation wasn’t enough to decide to let him go – even though he’s not sure how he can get out of here, wherever ‘here’ is. The wings behind her start firing up again, surrounding themselves in orange fire and her eyes flicker between blue and red, pupils becoming slits.

The knife hidden in his boot might as well be a banana. It’s going to do nothing for him.

“W-what exactly are you?” Hide attempts another distraction as he backs away from her, there are several tunnels leading out of the cave and they’re his only escape routes. There’s one directly behind him, and he’s careful to step over the bones, most not human-looking, so he doesn’t trip.

Hide’s not even going to think about how, in the conditions he’s in right now, he’s definitely not going to last long.

She smirks, jagged teeth making a startling appearance.

“I’m your worst nightmare.”


End file.
